Shah Ismail and the making of Shia Iran
The Safavid Shah Ismail takes Tabriz and proclaims Twelver Shi'ism the state religion, beginning the conversion of Iran into the Shia heartland of the Islamic world.
- Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire — Andrew J. Newman, I.B. Tauris (2006)
- Safavid Dynasty — Rudi Matthee, Encyclopaedia Iranica (2008)
- An Introduction to Shi'i Islam — Moojan Momen, Yale University Press (1985)
- A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind — Michael Axworthy, Basic Books (2008)
- Battle of Chaldiran — Encyclopaedia Britannica
In 1501 a teenage leader of a Sufi order from Ardabil, in Iranian Azerbaijan, rode into Tabriz at the head of Turkmen tribesmen known as the Qizilbash, “red heads”, for their red caps. Ismail, perhaps fourteen years old, had himself proclaimed shah and declared that Twelver Shi’ism, the branch of Islam that follows twelve imams descended from the Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law Ali, would be the religion of his realm.
- Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire — Andrew J. Newman, I.B. Tauris (2006)
- Safavid Dynasty — Rudi Matthee, Encyclopaedia Iranica (2008)
A Sunni country turned Shia
This was a revolution. Most Iranians were Sunni at the time, though there were Shia centres such as Qom and devotion to Ali and his family was widespread. Ismail and his successors enforced the change: Sunni scholars were killed or fled, the first three caliphs were publicly cursed, and the state invited Arabic-speaking Shia clerics from Jabal Amil in today’s Lebanon and from Bahrain to build up a Shia religious establishment.
- Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire — Andrew J. Newman, I.B. Tauris (2006)
- An Introduction to Shi'i Islam — Moojan Momen, Yale University Press (1985)
- Safavid Dynasty — Rudi Matthee, Encyclopaedia Iranica (2008)
- An Introduction to Shi'i Islam — Moojan Momen, Yale University Press (1985)
- Iran — Encyclopaedia Britannica
Between Ottomans and Uzbeks
Shi’ism also marked Iran off from its Sunni neighbours. In 1514 the Ottoman sultan Selim I crushed Ismail’s army at Chaldiran with artillery and muskets, and the Ottomans took eastern Anatolia and later Baghdad. The frontier agreed in 1639 still roughly divides Iran from Turkey and Iraq.
- Battle of Chaldiran — Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire — Andrew J. Newman, I.B. Tauris (2006)
- A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind — Michael Axworthy, Basic Books (2008)
- An Introduction to Shi'i Islam — Moojan Momen, Yale University Press (1985)
Shah Abbas and Isfahan
The dynasty’s high point came under Shah Abbas I (1588–1629). He curbed the Qizilbash, built a standing army including Georgian and Armenian converts, retook territory from the Ottomans and in 1622, with English help, drove the Portuguese out of Hormuz.
- Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire — Andrew J. Newman, I.B. Tauris (2006)
- Safavid Dynasty — Rudi Matthee, Encyclopaedia Iranica (2008)
- Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire — Andrew J. Newman, I.B. Tauris (2006)
- A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind — Michael Axworthy, Basic Books (2008)
Collapse
Later shahs grew weaker, and in 1722 an Afghan army besieged and starved Isfahan, ending effective Safavid rule. A Turkmen general, Nader Shah, reunited the country and in 1739 sacked Delhi, but his empire died with him. The Qajars, another Turkic tribe, eventually took power in 1789–96.
- A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind — Michael Axworthy, Basic Books (2008)
- Safavid Dynasty — Rudi Matthee, Encyclopaedia Iranica (2008)
The Safavid legacy is double. They gave Iran a strong sense of being a distinct nation with a distinct faith, and they built a powerful Shia clergy whose independence from the state would matter enormously in 1891, 1906 and 1979.
- An Introduction to Shi'i Islam — Moojan Momen, Yale University Press (1985)
- Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution — Nikki R. Keddie, Yale University Press (2006)
The Safavids reunited Iran after nine centuries of foreign dynasties and fragmentation, gave it a distinct faith that protected it from absorption by the Ottomans, and built its greatest cities.
- Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire — Andrew J. Newman, I.B. Tauris (2006)
- A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind — Michael Axworthy, Basic Books (2008)
Conversion was imposed, often by force, on a majority-Sunni population, with clerics imported from Lebanon and Bahrain to teach the new faith. The early Safavids were Turkic-speaking and drew their strength from Turkmen tribes; the dynasty only gradually became "Persian", and the process took well over a century.
- Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire — Andrew J. Newman, I.B. Tauris (2006)
- Safavid Dynasty — Rudi Matthee, Encyclopaedia Iranica (2008)
- An Introduction to Shi'i Islam — Moojan Momen, Yale University Press (1985)
Why it matters today
The Safavids gave Iran both its modern faith and roughly its modern shape. Shi'ism, with its mourning for Imam Hussein, its clergy and its shrines, became woven into Iranian identity, and the rivalry with the Sunni Ottomans foreshadowed today's Shia–Sunni tensions with Iran's neighbours. Isfahan, the Safavid capital, is still what many Iranians think of as the most beautiful city on earth.